


To Suffer in the Dark

by Esmethewitch



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Dark, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, I have lots of feelings about stormtroopers, I make terrible things happen to fictional characters instead of going to therapy, Mental Health Issues, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Self-Harm, Slice of Life, Suicidal Thoughts, Surveillance, Teenagers, mentions of Finn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-23
Updated: 2019-10-23
Packaged: 2020-12-30 21:18:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21146783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Esmethewitch/pseuds/Esmethewitch
Summary: Young trooper GB-2903 does what she can to feel in control of herself and her body. GB-0241 worries about her. A study in what intense competition and being part of a space army might actually do to a teenager.





	To Suffer in the Dark

It was after the period traditionally called "lights-out", but the female barracks of the 16-17 age cohort of the GB stormtrooper unit were still lit with a faint blue glow. There was the red and white checkered pattern of the door panel glowing in front of GB-2903's exhaustion-burnt eyes, shaped and colored slightly like the Admiral's rank-plaque she knew she could never earn, despite her best efforts. Especially not after the kriff-show of her evaluations this afternoon. _Substandard,_ they called her marksmanship percent rank. _Substandard_ the air vents hissed, in a language only she could understand. If not for the fading sharpness on the little wounds on her fingers, she would have slid into the numbness she feared more than the specter of Reconditioning. She flopped onto her stomach, reaching out and gripping the bedposts tightly, making the half-healed tender flesh scream out again. Good.

"Quit tossing," GB-0241 admonished from the bunk above her. "Some of us are trying to sleep." She poked her head over the edge and glared down at 2903, the shadows and 0241's sleep-deprivation sunken eyes making her look for all the Galaxy like a holo of Emperor Palpatine, though with skin a healthy light brown rather than the Sith Lord's pallor. She hesitated, and then said in a softer voice: "You operational, Oh-three? You kind of scared me at afternoon Evals."

"What does it look like?" 2903 let out a shuddering breath.

"Shut up!" three other people yelled at once.

"Sorry," 0241 whispered. She swung herself down the ladder, and padded over to 2903's side. "We're going to the 'fresher, " she called, peeled 2903's blanket off, and gently scooped her up. Together they walked down the brightly lit hallway and ducked into a supply closet. There, they would be free of the eyes of the cameras. Rumor had it that there was one mounted above each trooper cadet's bunk, and that was why the barracks were never completely dark. Another rumor had it that somebody started this rumor to deter the desperate young cadets from rubbing one out with the rest of their squad in full earshot, and that there were no cameras at all.

2903 knew that the cameras were there the morning she was pulled out of her emergency repair and maintenance course and sent to medbay for prescription sleep aids. "I'm fine," she told the impassive med-droid at first. Its only response was to pull up a video clip of herself kicking off her blanket, whimpering, sobbing, and twitching like a pasty girl-shaped worm speared on the end of a pointy stick, like the kind she saw for sale in a market on some dusty red planet. Before they'd burned the stall and the market to the ground. She could not argue with that, and accepted her little canister of pills.

But nobody would watch mops and bottles of cleaning fluids. Unlike the troopers, these objects spared the First Order the inconvenience of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Safely in the dark, 0241 clasped 2903's left hand in hers, feeling the pain 2903 could not put words to written on her flesh. It hurt when the other girl touched her there. She liked that. 2903 did not deserve tenderness from anybody at all, much less the young woman she loved. And then, these probing hands moved to her shoulders and things got worse.

"I wish you'd stop doing this to yourself," 0241 said.

2903 heard an echo of Sergeant Orita's disgusted tone when he saw her take off her gloves after a shooting drill, exposing the squishy bubbles of blisters on her fingertips, the soft pink and red lines drawn by ragged fingernails. "Don't damage First Order assets like that!", he'd scolded.

At his words, she'd wanted to snatch up a vibroknife and eviscerate herself before his eyes. _I'll do what I want to this body. It's mine._

"You deserve better", 0241 whispered.

"You can do better", Sergeant Orita echoed from the training room. She didn't. She couldn't. Tears oozed out of the corners of her eyes like fat slugs from rotten fruit, leaving slimy trails down her cheeks.

"Shh. I've got you, Oh-three", 0241 said. "I know you can't just stop, but could you maybe try to do it a bit less tomorrow? For me?"

_"I'll do anything for you", _ 2903 had once sworn on a similar night, after 0241 had worked her to orgasm in a shower stall and alternated between gently scrubbing and caressing her naked form as she came down.

"Yes,"she answered.

"Good," 0241 sighed. "I want to kriffing kill Sergeant Orita. He's the reason none of us have any prospects for promotion. Besides, he was too hard on you."

This was an effort to distract 2903 from her internal pain by blaming it on some outsider, but she gladly took the bait.

"If you did it on the blaster range, you could pass it off as an accident," she murmured.

"Good idea."

0241 coughed. "Can-can I touch you? Would that help?"

"You already are." 2903 shrugged.

"No, I meant _touch_ you."

"It's called sex, Four-one."

"I didn't mean sex. Well, not what you'd properly call sex."

"Oh."

"Tell me if you don't like it."

At that, 0241's hands moved to the nape of her neck, and she gently kissed 2903 on the lips. She stroked 2903's close-cropped hair, then rubbed her way down her back. 2903 clenched her hands into fists. 0241 felt this, and gently slid her hands along 2903's arms, stopping at her wrists. She kissed each wrist lightly, then unfolded each hand, skimming the abused flesh with her lips.

"You're beautiful, you're kind, and I don't care about what you're scoring on the sims. You're not stupid, and you make me laugh. I wanna get out of here with you someday."

Now she was veering into seditious talk. "What, like FN-2187 did? You want to join the Resistance and get us all killed?"

"No. I'd like to live with you in a little hut at the edge of nowhere. Like that planet where we had our first away mission-what was it named again?"

"Kalifar IV".

"Even the name is pretty. I loved how wet and spongy everything got after the rains. I'd want our roof to be metal, so we could hear the raindrops fall."

"That would be nice. I'd want to stay in bed with you all morning, just listening to it." 2903 smiled. Imagining things was nice.

"We'd get a big bed so we both fit, so one of us doesn't have to go against the wall."

"Lots of pillows."

"Maybe a tooka-cat, if we can have anything in this."

They wrapped their arms around each other. " 'M tired, " 2903 whispered. They staggered back to bed in each other's arms. 0241 crawled into 2903's bottom bunk, wedging herself against the wall and enveloping the other girl in her body.

"Night, Oh-three."

"Night, Four-one. Love you." Before she could drift off, 2903 made a rude gesture at the little black box that she knew housed a camera. _Suck it, medbay creeps. 0241's keeping me safe for tonight._

The gut-wrenching fears that kept her eyes open earlier that night and made her sob into her pillow were temporarily banished. They would return to her as frequently and as predictably as the high tides on a planet with two moons, rising and drowning her in waves of terror, but even then they would recede, and she would live again. Until the dreadnought they were stationed on blew up.


End file.
